Smitten Kitchen Monkey Cake

This is not exactly a food post, but I have pictures of a cake, so it sorta count.

My friend's, Michael, little nephew is recently diagnosed with leukemia. I met the little guy 2 years ago and he was the coolest kid. He plays the violin and sings and generally is a very happy little guy. I was so sad when I hear the news and didn't really know what to do for him. So I baked him this cake.

Homefries

This morning I made myself a delicious omelette with a side of home fries and three strips of extra thick bacon. I always need a side of homefries with my Sunday morning brunch, but lots of brunch places have bland and boring homefries, and then I'm left disappointed. One of the very few good things about moving to Pittsburgh is Pamela's. Besides having good (and very different) hotcakes, they also have tasty potatoes (menu item lyonnaise potatoes). Definitely a must-try if you are in the area. So my creation this morning was a mix between Pamela's lyonnaise potatoes and a bacon baked potato. Nothing can go wrong with such a beautiful combination!

Ricotta with Spinach and Sausage Stuffed Pasta Shells

Another recipe taken from Simply Recipes. I might was well make a rule that I would only make food from Simply Recipes.

I first know of this dish from eating in the UCSF Mt. Zion hospital cafeteria. It was actually pretty good because they make a new entree dish every day so I get to try new things everyday. Their ricotta stuffed pasta shell dish used really really large pasta shells. The shells were the size of my palm!

Fish Taco With Mango Salsa

Whenever the weather gets cold, I make Mexican food. What? Oh well, fish tacos it is! Recipe was taken from SimplyRecipes

I always feel like tacos are such a rip off when you buy it. Two or three small tacos for $5 or $6? No, thank you! Even I, a 105 lbs female, feel like two tacos aren't much of a snack. Let me tell you that when I made these tacos to feed three people, it only cost me less than $10 and there wasn't much "cooking" to do, just a lot of chopping.

Tofu, Mushrooms, and Bamboo

I went over to Iva's while her mom was visiting, and her mom made a similar dish for us (among other tasty dishes). So this is my take on her tofu dish. I was snoopy enough to ask her what she put in it.

Pumpkin Scone with Ginger Honey Glaze

We were having a pumpkin streak where we made pumpkin everything. Watch out for another pumpkin post in a little bit. So since I am poor, I subscribe to Poor Girl Gourmet and found this pumpkin scone recipe that sounded delicious! But let me tell you, it's not cheap.... unless you have everything. But who keeps candied ginger in their cupboard? Anyways, these were really good, especially the ginger honey glaze. It seriously taste like sweeten condensed milk. So awesome!

Almond Sponge Cake

Hi Kids! I'm going to let you in on another Lam secret family recipe: almond sponge cake. This is my aunt's specialty, and I've been eating it since I can remember. It's one of my favoritest cakes in the whole entire world, and she always brings me an entire cake when I go home! I love my aunt (and her cake) to death! So I've decided to share the joy; I hope you like it!

Oxtail Stew

"Have you ever had oxtails? Most people I know haven't even heard of them, which is really quite a shame. Think braised beef short ribs, but with even more flavor, and you'll get a sense of why those of us who eat oxtail get dreamy eyed when we think about them. Yes oxtails come from a steer's tail, a well exercised muscle, marbled with fat. The segments are vertebrae so they have lots of iron-rich marrow as well. My father, who grew up during the Depression, remembers oxtails as being food for people with little money, because they could be had so cheap. You could get them for pennies a pound. These days, they're somewhat hard to come by and no longer cheap (though you can sometimes get a good deal on them at Costco and Asian markets). As with most tough cuts, oxtail are best slow cooked for several hours. They tend to be fatty, so we like to cook them a day ahead, so we can chill them overnight and scrape off the fat from the top the next day." - Simply Recipes

The above is an excerpt from Simply Recipes' Oxtail Stew recipe. It's a little similar to the one in this recipe, and I thought it was a good introduction to oxtails if you've never heard of them. I decided that I wanted to have some of my mom's cooking, so I called her up for her oxtail stew, which is one of her staple recipes. While I was on the phone with her she told me how Gandalf likes to sleep with her, aw! And Gandalf stole my mom's fish while she was cooking, and my mom had to chase her around the house to get it back. My sister says Gandalf also stole her chicken. In case you forgot who Gandalf is, she's this little kitty cat. Anyways, less cats more food!

Coconut Tuiles

Coconut tuile sounds so fancy and difficult, but after making them I will have to say that these are the easiest cookies ever! In fact, if you need to appear fancy pants for some parties, just make some coconut tuiles.

I got the recipe from Simple Recipes. Yeah, I wouldn't be a fan girl if I didn't use Elise's recipe now, would I?

Bumble Bee Tuna Salad

It was Helen who introduced me to this world of ready-to-eat tuna salad. They sure are tasty. If you are a cat owner like me, you would find that it's very hard to eat tuna without cats surround you on all sides. So these ready-to-eat tuna salad is very handy if you want to eat tuna away from home.

So this is a review post of Bumble Bee Tuna Salad* because sometimes, we just don't have time to cook fancy pants food like lamb burgers and beef stew.